Stop Reading Self-Help Books!

I am forever being contacted by clients recommending a variety of self-help books. And, yet, a client recently mentioned to me that he had been on a workshop where another participant told him to "Stop reading the books - and start living it!" The truth is, that you will only find true wisdom within. You will only find your true potential within. You don't have to read others' experiences or exhortations - you have to, at some point, sooner or later, start walking the talk - you've got to do it for yourself.

Many - or most - of the self-help books available on the market talk about our inner power, our innate ability to unleash the "giant within". However, continually reading books will not do it for you - books contain other people's wisdom, other people's experience, other people's journeys. You've got to take your own journey. And that journey starts in this very moment - it doesn't start with a New Year's Resolution, with some future commitment. In this very moment, you have, entirely within your own power, the ability to start truly living - way beyond what so-called "normal" people take for living.

You see, "normal" people don't live - they exist in a pseudo-world of automatic reactive behaviour, based on what they internalised when they were young and impressionable. In our formative years, we "learned" how the world works, what was possible and impossible, who we are and what our place is in this world of ours. Research indicates that little (or nothing) of what we learned approximates to the truth of what you and I can really achieve. Research indicates that we were socialised or normalised, that we live to a set of norms that confine us into an existence which sells us far short of all that we could actually and otherwise be.

The same research indicates that those who follow the norms are predisposed to being negative, believing the negative and mindlessly accepting that life is the way the vast majority of people believe it to be - a struggle, where you have to work hard to be a success, where nothing comes easily, where you live and die on the same set of rails that have been previously travelled by all the other normal people. Of course, if you buy into that nonsense, that is how your life will turn out - because we all create, through our subconscious beliefs, our very own self-fulfilling prophecies.

Time to wake up from the nightmare! Time to realise that you have, within your very own self, the innate ability to be all that you can be. Time to realise that you can create the life that you really, really want because, in the day to day of your current everyday life, you are already creating the life that you expect - it's just that normal people live down to their expectations. Decades of research prove conclusively that we experience what we expect to experience, that we perceive what we expect to perceive, that we live the lives we expect to live.

Unfortunately, we are surrounded by normality and find it hard to break free. Sure, we might like to read about it, might like to dream about it, but most people will die without having realized their wildest dreams, without having realized what normal people perceive as unrealistic ambitions. These dreams are only wild or unrealistic because they don't conform to the norms expected of normal people. These dreams and ambitions are yours for the living if you start using your mind abnormally - the way extraordinarily successful people use their minds. The only difference between you and people like Bill Gates, Muhammad Ali, Donald Trump, Mahatma Gandhi and all the rest is that those guys refused to accept the norm.

You can turn your back on the drudgery of normal too by changing your state of mind. Normal people's minds are in an awful state - one bombarded by 50,000 random thoughts each day, one where their subconscious constantly focused on what was learned during their formative years - a past long gone.

As I said earlier, now is the moment in which you can change everything. Now is the moment in which you can start living exceptionally. There's no time like the present. Indeed, now is the only time and place you or I have - doesn't it make sense that we make the very most we can of the here and now.

This is done by turning your mind's attention away from the nonsense that is pulling the normal world over your eyes. This is done by developing - or re-developing, because we could all do it as children, before we became normal adults - your innate, natural ability to invest your precious energy in the present moment. If you invest your energy in now, you will be more present than the normal person. You will have what normal people call "presence" - the kind of presence and influence that the people I mentioned earlier on have exercised in their lives.

You invest your energy in the present by paying more attention to the here and now. You are blessed in that you have, at your disposal, five senses with which you can actively engage to experience the wonder of what is going on now - not what normal people think is going on - but what is actually happening. You might just find that, in doing so, you'll find that all the opportunities you need to achieve effortless success are before your very eyes. Open them.

Author's Bio:

Willie Horton was born and educated in Dublin, Ireland. An ex-accountant and ex-senior banker, he has worked in the area of personal development since 1996, enabling business leaders, sports people and ordinary people understand how state of mind creates success (or failure). They describe the results as 'unbelievable' and 'life-changing'. Willie and his family now live in the French Alps. For more information, visit http://www.gurdy.net

Karl Marx

There are some very good reasons why you should not read self-help literature. Most of it is watered-down pop psychology intended for people who are not very well educated and desperate to change their lives. The kind of people who might write self-help books would not normally be listened to in a social situation and so they have to write books to feed their narcissism and give them a sense of existing. I knew one such author before he starting writing, so much pathology there but he now makes a living advising and motivating other people as a creative coach. This was my experience of him.

There are some very good reasons why you should not read self-help literature. Most of it is watered-down pop psychology intended for people who are not very well educated and desperate to change their lives. The kind of people who might write self-help books would not normally be listened to in a social situation and so they have to write books to feed their narcissism and give them a sense of existing. I knew one such author before he starting writing, so much pathology there but he now makes a living advising and motivating other people as a creative coach. This was my experience of him.

Disagree. Most people's lives DON'T turn out at all the way they expected. That's what makes life so great is that we don't always know how things will turn out. Life is full of surprises!
I believe I get what you're saying, that people often limit themselves by their own beliefs, but too many people read articles like this and give into the notion that if they just sit and expect to have everything given to them, that expectation will bring it to them. self-manifest destiny right? Wrong. The people who have high expectations, have them because they are DOING something. They are diligently working toward fulfilling that expectation without allowing themselves to take their eyes off the prize.

Hi
I agree with you - many people do think that all you have to do is sit back and wait for things to be given to you. I would have thought that only a crazy person would get that from this article - sure, you could be forgiven for getting that message from awful books like The Secret - but that is certainly not what this article is saying. Yes I agree with you that many people may well get the idea that you don't have to do anything. But, of course, many poeple - most people in fact - are crazy - seventy years psychological research proves that. For that reason, my latest book, Normal Crazy People, not only highlights how so many people can be so easily misled - it also provides ten ACTIONS that you must start taking to get what you want out of life. And not what you want in restrictive terms - life is the adventure that you talk of - we should let it happen - ONCE WE HAVE TAKEN THE APPROPRIATE ACTION

Mr. Horton,
I have a question for you: (You are the expert right?)
What have you expected that came true for you? Since you like us, have potential to become anything you set desire or expect... what have you done with that unlimited human potential?
It's only a fair question to ask of someone giving expert advise. I think we have the right to know the answer before buying into it. If you think I'm wrong to ask... please, correct me. If not, answer.
These days, I pay more attention to what people do than what they say.

You're quite right to ask. In my view nobody should give advice in relation to dealing with anything that they haven't experienced themselves. Over the past 18 years my life has been transformed by what I have learned about myself and my place in the world. I have made some terrible mistakes during that learning process and they have equipped me all the more - in my work and in my life. We (myself, my wife and three children) have a quality of life that we could not have imagined 12 years ago. We now live in the French Alps having moved from Dublin at what turned out to be a most propitious time. We have everything that we want, we have a wonderful life and we are happy. Many people who have known me throughout that period - and before - marvel at what has changed about me and my life. You are quite right to pay attention to what people do rather than what they say - there are many people who peddle what they don't practice. I am the living proof of what I teach.

Another outstanding article by Willie. I wonder if the inspiration for this was Dr. Goeglein? She did a seminar on exactly that subject about 18 months ago that I followed copiously, took notes and STILL have the notes hanging in my office. She and Willie have kind of become the only PD teachers I follow. I hate to share in the negative, but I'm honestly sick to death of soft-speaking, fast-selling, gurus cooking up some magic potion for life and selling it to all-to-willing passers by. PLEASE just share some down-to-earth good advice on living a better life. To the extent we can learn from one another, I need to learn the ReAL stuff, not some recipe for Pie-in-the-Sky. But that's JMHO. Mary Agnes Antonopoulos

Haven't come across Dr. Goeglein - but am going to look her up. Mary Agnes, too many people are selling quick-fixes - and quick-fixes don't work. Improving your life is a life's work - moment to moment, day to day - but it's a labor of love, a journey worth stepping out on, an adventure that will take you to places that so-called "normal people" can't even begin to imagine. Our life is in our own hands, our success or failure is our choice - moment to moment. Let's make the right choice.

To me most self help books are a liitle like a road map.
All you have to do is Tweak it a little to go on your lifes journey.What helps me the most is my belief in the Bible.
Habakuk 2:2 " Write the vision..." Matthew 19:26 ...."but with God all things are possible" and last but not least Mark 11:24 " Therefor I say into you .What things soever ye desire,when ye pray ,beleive that ye shall receive them ,and ye shall have them " That helps me . Peace Out.

Hi Terrace
The best of all is "If you want something, believe that you have it already and it is given you" (Matthew) - we have to believe - and belief is subconscious - but once we believe our subconscious creates new behaviors for us and how we behave creates our reality

Hi Willie, a great call to action. We never know what we can achieve til we try! This year I decided to write and publish a book. (one of those "self help" books) It has been so much fun! But in my defence it is full of questions that the reader must answer for herself!

Spot on Michael - it's all about action - if you don't like your life at present, you're obviously doing something wrong - and it's up to you to do something different. We are the creators of our own lives

Reading self-help books is useless if you don't apply what you've learned. Action is critical to success! If your life is not meant the way you want it to be, don't just say: "Our time will come." or "Things will get better some day."
Don't expect your luck to change, unless you do something about it. If something goes wrong, don't just regard it as a temporary setback; but use it as feedback. Learn your lesson, make the most of the situation, and do something to resolve the problem.
It's not enough to think positive; you also have to act positive. - Michael Lee, Giver of Sensational Personal Development eBooks